Web-Based Product Ordering Method

ABSTRACT

Call center order system and process allows a customer service representative to make remote calls to a server to perform shopping cart actions, all on one web page. Historically, representatives would need to enter client information and product information on several different web pages to satisfy a purchase. Eventually, the representative would have “loaded” several different pages to enter product and customer information. This method resulted in a high amount of errors and increased the risk of fraud. The system utilizes AJAX and dynamic HTML technology. The representative is able to add, update, or remove products in the cart without waiting for the page to “refresh” after every action. Cart actions are flagged with a “ticking” indicator bar. Orders may be placed in a “queue” instead of loading a different page. A mild fraud mode to allow multiple orders is also described. A storefront is used in this process.

The present application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser.No. 11/694,884, filed 30 Mar. 2007, entitled “Web-Based Product OrderingMethod”, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No.60/787,937, filed 31 Mar. 2006, entitled “Call Center Order Tool,” allof which are incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to technology for managing shopping carts. Moreparticularly, it relates to a software module for administering callcenter orders.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

A call center is a centralized office used for the purpose of receivingand transmitting a large volume of requests, usually by telephone. Acall center is operated by a company to administer incoming productsupport or information inquiries from consumers. Outgoing calls fortelemarketing, clientele, and debt collection are also made. In additionto a call center, collective handling of letters, faxes, and e-mails atone location is known as a contact center.

Additionally, a call center is often operated through an extensive openworkspace for call center agents, with work stations that include acomputer for each agent, a telephone set/headset connected to a telecomswitch, and one or more supervisor stations. It can be independentlyoperated or networked with additional centers, often linked to acorporate computer network, including mainframes, microcomputers andlocal area networks (LAN). Increasingly, the voice and data pathwaysinto the center are linked through a set of new technologies calledcomputer telephony integration (CTI).

Most major businesses use call centers to interact with their customers.Examples include utility companies, mail order catalogue firms, andcustomer support for computer hardware and software. Some businesseseven service internal functions through call centers. Examples of thisinclude help desks and sales support.

A call center can be viewed, from an operational point of view, as aqueuing network. The simplest call center, consisting of a single typeof customers and statistically-identical servers, can be viewed as asingle-queue. There is operations research of call centers as well, suchas forecasting of calls, determining shift-structures, and for analyzingcustomers' impatience while waiting to be served by an agent.

The centralization of call management aims to improve a company'soperations and reduce costs, while providing a standardized,streamlined, uniform service for consumers, making this approach idealfor large companies with extensive customer support needs. Toaccommodate for such a large customer base, large warehouses are oftenconverted to office space to host all call center operations under oneroof. Centralized offices mean that large numbers of workers can bemanaged and controlled by a relatively small number of managers andsupport staff. They are often supported by computer technology thatmanages, measures and monitors the performance and activities of theworkers. Call center staff are closely monitored for quality control,level of proficiency, and customer service. Typical contact centeroperations focus on the discipline areas of workforce management, queuemanagement, quality monitoring, and reporting. Reporting in a callcenter can be further broken down into real time reporting andhistorical reporting. The types of information collected for a group ofcall center agents typically include: agents logged in, agents ready totake calls, agents available to take calls, agents in wrap up mode,average call duration, average call duration including wrap-up time,longest duration agent available, longest duration call in queue, numberof calls in queue, number of calls offered, number of calls abandoned,average speed to answer, average speed to abandoned and service level,calculated by the percentage of calls answered in under a certain timeperiod.

Many call centers use workforce management software, which is softwarethat uses historical information coupled with projected need to generateautomated schedules. This aims to provide adequate staffing skilledenough to assist callers. The relatively high cost of personnel andworker inefficiency accounts for the majority of call center operatingexpenses, influencing outsourcing in the call center industry.

Inadequate computer systems can mean staffs take one or two secondslonger than necessary to process a transaction. This can often bequantified in staff cost terms. This is often used as a driving factorin any business case to justify a complete system upgrade orreplacement. For several factors, including the efficiency of the callcenter, the level of computer and telecom support that may be adequatefor staff in a typical branch office may prove totally inadequate in acall center.

Call centers need to use a wide variety of different technologies toallow them to manage the large volumes of work that need to be managedby the call center. These technologies ensure that agents are kept asproductive as possible, and that calls are queued and processed asquickly as possible, resulting in good levels of service.

Customer service representatives need a faster and more efficient way toplace orders on behalf of a caller, instead of using normal order flow.The present invention provides a solution to these needs and otherproblems, and offers other advantages over the prior art.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is related to a software system that solves theabove-mentioned problems. In a preferred embodiment, call center ordersystem and process allows a customer service representative(representative) to make remote calls to a server to perform shoppingcart actions, all on one web page. Historically, representatives wouldneed to enter client information and product information on severaldifferent web pages to satisfy a purchase. For example, a customer wouldcontact a call center and speak to a representative. The representative,in turn, would first select a product in either a web page or dialogbox. Next, the representative would move to several different pages toenter customer information such as address and shipping data.Eventually, the representative would have “loaded” several differentpages to enter product and customer information. This method resulted ina high amount of errors and increased the risk of fraud, affectingcompany sales and customer satisfaction.

Call center order system and process, on the other hand, utilizes AJAXtechnology to perform the shopping cart actions. These shopping cartactions may be for several different types of products such as physicalgoods, electronically downloadable software, video or music, as well asservices such as conference registrations, repair requests,reservations, or the like. AJAX, shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScriptand Extensible Markup Language (XML), is a web development technique forcreating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pagesfeel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the serverbehind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to bereloaded each time the user, or representative, requests a change. Thisis meant to increase the web page's interactivity, speed, and usability.

Again in a preferred embodiment of call center order system and process,all products are initially loaded into dropdown lists when the page isfirst loaded. When the user changes product categories, the dropdownsare re-built using JavaScript to filter the list for only that selectedcategory. The representative is able to manipulate the shopping cart(e.g., add, update, or remove products in the shopping cart) withoutwaiting for the page to “refresh” after every action. Furthermore, allcart actions are flagged with a “ticking” indicator bar for thesplit-second that the request goes to the server and back. In this way,product orders and requests may be placed in a “queue” instead ofloading and refreshing a different page for each product. Finally, callcenter order system and process enables the site to switch to Mild Fraudmode and allows multiple orders to be placed from a single IP address. Astorefront is used in this process and all products and promotionspresent within the store are available for the representative to make apurchase on behalf of the customer.

Additional advantages and features of the invention will be set forth inpart in the description which follows, and in part, will become apparentto those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may belearned by practice of the invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows an overview diagram of call center order system andprocess.

FIG. 2 describes a “Global Store” graphical user interface.

FIG. 3 illustrates a login page for call center order system andprocess.

FIG. 4 illustrates an order placement page.

FIG. 5 further illustrates the order placement page from FIG. 4.

FIG. 6 shows an example of an “Ongoing Protection Messaging” thatdisplays for eligible products.

FIG. 7 shows an ongoing protection notice.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In a preferred embodiment, call center order system and process allows acustomer service representative (representative) to make remote calls toa server to perform shopping cart actions, all on one web page.Historically, representatives would need to enter client information andproduct information on several different web pages to satisfy apurchase. For example, a customer would contact a call center and speakto a representative. The representative, in turn, would first select aproduct in either a web page or dialog box. Next, the representativewould move to several different pages to enter customer information suchas address and shipping data. Eventually, the representative would have“loaded” several different pages to enter product and customerinformation. This method resulted in a high amount of errors andincreased the risk of fraud, affecting company sales and customersatisfaction.

Call center order system and process, on the other hand, utilizes AJAXtechnology to perform the shopping cart actions. AJAX, shorthand forAsynchronous JavaScript and Extensible Markup Language (XML), is a webdevelopment technique for creating interactive web applications. Theintent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging smallamounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entireweb page does not have to be reloaded each time the user, orrepresentative, requests a change. This is meant to increase the webpage's interactivity, speed, and usability.

Again in a preferred embodiment of call center order system and process,all products are initially loaded into dropdown lists when the page isfirst loaded. When the user changes product categories, the dropdownsare re-built using JavaScript to filter the list for only that selectedcategory. The representative is able to add, update, or remove productsin the shopping cart without waiting for the page to “refresh” afterevery action. Furthermore, all cart actions are flagged with a “ticking”indicator bar for the split-second that the request goes to the serverand back. In this way, product orders and requests may be placed in a“queue” instead of loading and refreshing a different page for eachproduct. A storefront is used in this process and all products andpromotions present within the store are available for the representativeto make a purchase on behalf of the customer.

Call center order system and process relies on the domain to remain thesame throughout the purchase process. In many instances a storefront mayhave hard coded URLs which switch the representative to an incorrectdomain. Ultimately the representative is inadvertently placing ordersoutside of the test site. Thus the representative will be in a highfraud mode just like any regular customer and will encounter may frauderrors. Accordingly, call center order system and process enables thesite to switch to Mild Fraud mode and allows multiple orders to beplaced from a single internet protocol (IP) address.

FIG. 1 describes an overview diagram of call center order system andprocess. First, a representative will select a customer's country andlanguage 100, where all pricing, offers, currencies, and payment methodsare displayed based on the selections. A country language selector page102 (described in FIG. 2) can be updated with new countries andlanguages as additional security identifiers are created.

Referring again to FIG. 1, once the country has been selected the systemwill check to see if the representative is already logged in and thenwill display a pertinent login or order page. The representative willlogin 104 using client identifications and passwords on a login page105. It will be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that therepresentative will login 104 using a user name, password, andvalidation requirements. It will be further understood that the callcenter order system and process utilizes a graphical user interface(GUI). A GUI allows for interaction with a computer or other mediaformats which employ graphical images along with text to represent theinformation and actions available to a user. The actions are usuallyperformed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements.Passwords expire after a preferred time period which is set by defaultby the representative and/or a provider of call center order system andprocess. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that otherGUIs could be developed that provide the same functionality while notdeparting from the scope and spirit of the present invention.

The next step in the overview diagram of call center order system andprocess is an “Order Screen” 106 section. Here, a product is selected, ashopping cart is managed, and an authorization page is edited. Next, inan “Order Confirmation” 130 step, the representative confirms theinformation entered in “Country and Language Selection” 100, “Login”104, and “Order Screen” 106. Thereafter, if the information is correct132, the customer service representative will be directed to an “OrderCompletion and Thank You” 134 page. If the information is not correct,then the representative may re enter and re-submit the items listed inthe above steps.

FIG. 2 illustrates a country language selector page 102. Here therepresentative chooses a storefront in a language and country theydesire. The representative may choose from several links or may choosefrom a drop down menu. Furthermore, an “Order Tool Login” 105 page isillustrated in FIG. 3. Here the representative enters a username andpassword to login to the system.

Referring now to FIG. 4, an order placement screen 107 is shown. Therepresentative may choose a currency and product under “Currency/ProductSelector” 108. It will be understood by one of ordinary skill in the artthat “Currency/Product Selector” 108 is a drop down menu. A drop downmenu is a menu whose title is normally visible but whose contents areshown only when the user activates it, normally by clicking on the titleor a small arrow next to the title, whereupon the menu items appearbelow the title. The user may select an item from the menu by draggingthe mouse from the menu title to the item and releasing, or by clickingthe title and then clicking the item. It will further be understood thatdrop down menus are used in various aspects of the call center ordersystem and process.

When the representative clicks on a category under “Currency/ProductSelector” 108, the next drop down menu, such as product, will berepopulated with items specific to that category. Categories may includebut are not limited to: retail, upgrade, subscription, compact disk (CD)replacement, and default items. The same repopulation applies to adeliver drop down menu. It will be understood by one of ordinary skillin the art that selecting an item in one drop down menu filters the nextdrop down menu.

Next, the representative may select a “Cart Action” 110. Here a currencytype, campaign ID, and coupon code may be applied. Under “Pending CartActions” 112, the items that are pending completion are shown. All cartactions are flagged with a “ticking” indicator bar for the split-secondthat the request goes to the server and back. In this way, productorders and requests may be placed in a “queue” instead of loading andrefreshing a different page for each product. For example, arepresentative may add several products together very quickly as thecustomer requests. The products will thus be lined up in a queue in the“Pending Cart actions” 112 section. This way the shopping cart will not“freeze” and the representative may safely and securely order severalproducts without any need to refresh and reload pages. Conversely, ifthe representative attempts to delete an item in queue, the shoppingcart will automatically lock. This ensures that the representative willnot make any mistakes in updating or deleting orders and forces therepresentative to wait until the orders have gone through the queue. Thesystem displays a message that the product is being added to the cartand locks the cart from further action. Once the item has been added tothe cart, the message is removed, the cart is unlocked, and order IDsand representative name fields are populate. It will be understood byone of ordinary skill in the art that product are often bundledtogether, thus if a representative attempts to delete a product inqueue, the related products may also be affected.

Furthermore, under “Shopping Cart” 114, the product(s) are listed alongwith quantity, delivery method, price, and ability to remove the item.It will be understood that “Shopping Cart” 114 is the actual cart whereorders are placed once they move through the “Pending Cart Actions” 112section. “Shopping Cart” 114 is continually refreshed without therepresentative needing to manually refresh the page. The representativealso does not have to click or load another page to see the shoppingcart with the current ordered products. Here, AJAX technology and alsodynamic HTML may be used. Also, the representative may click on a trashcan to dispose of an item. “Shipping” 116 menu allows the customerservice representative to choose the destination and method of shipment.The method will be limited based on the selected product.

Referring now to FIG. 5, the order placement screen of FIG. 4 is furtherexplained. An “Account Information” 118 section is where email address,password, and password verification is entered. The representative mayenter information into a “Billing Information” 120 section, such asregistration numbers, names, company names, addresses, and phonenumbers. Also, under “Shipping Information” 122 a shipping address maybe chosen. And, under “Payment Information” 124 a method of payment canbe elected. Finally, under “Wrap-up” 126 the representative may elect awrap-up code and any additional notes. It will be understood that thesecodes are the standard call center codes for explaining therepresentative's actions in a call, such as any site issues, customercomplaints, and online error codes. Clicking “Submit” 128 places theorder. The system will display an error message if particular fieldsneed to be completed. The representative then reviews the information,determines that a change is required and then goes back to the previouspage. The system will then display a thank you page and the process iscomplete.

FIG. 6 shows an example of an “On-going Protection Notice” 136 thatdisplays for eligible products when the country is the United States orCanada and credit card payment method selected. It will be appreciatedby those skilled in the art that FIG. 6 is an example of an “up sale”opportunity for a product that may be presented to a customer; howeverother “up sale” opportunities could be readily substituted for this onewithout departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention.Alternatively, FIG. 7 shows an example of an ongoing protection message138 that displays for eligible products when a non-credit card paymentmethod is selected or the country is not United States or Canada. Allproducts and promotions present within an online store are available forthe representative to make a purchase on behalf of a customer. Promotionpricing may be chosen by entering and applying an appropriate campaignidentification code (ID). Furthermore, it will be understood that allwrap up codes and reporting will be viewable, and all payment optionswill be customizable by client site ID. Standard address verificationsmay be implemented as well as an auto renewal check box for paymentoptions.

It is to be understood that even though numerous characteristics andadvantages of various embodiments of the present invention have been setforth in the foregoing description, together with details of thestructure and function of various embodiments of the invention, thisdisclosure is illustrative only, and changes may be made in detail,especially in matters of structure and arrangement of parts within theprinciples of the present invention to the full extent indicated by thebroad general meaning of the terms in which the appended claims areexpressed. For example, the particular elements may vary depending onthe particular application for the web interface such that differentdialog boxes are presented to a user that are organized or designeddifferently while maintaining substantially the same functionalitywithout departing from the scope and spirit of the present invention.

1. A method for ordering a product through a web-based interface over anetwork, comprising steps of: loading an order placement web page withproduct items as the web-page is first loaded by a computer, the orderplacement web page including a product option portion and providing aninterface to a purchase order system; obtaining information about apurchase order of a product from a user by selecting a product categoryfrom the order placement web page; repopulating product items in a menuspecific to the selected product category on the order placement webpage without loading and refreshing the entire order placement web page;obtaining information about a purchase order of a product from a user byselecting a product item from the menu with product items on the orderplacement web page; updating only the product option portion of theorder placement web page without loading and refreshing the entire orderplacement web page by utilizing asynchronous communications over thenetwork with the purchase order system to obtain updated product optioninformation for the selected product; and entering additionalinformation into the purchase order web page subsequent to updating theproduct option portion of the order placement web page.
 2. The method ofclaim 1 wherein the loading step comprises loading an order placementweb page with a list of all product items as the web-page is firstloaded by a computer and the repopulating step comprises filtering thepreviously loaded list of all product items to only show those productitems in the menu specific to the selected category on the orderplacement web page.
 3. The method of claim 1 wherein the order placementweb page comprises a single web page and the loading step comprisesproviding the interface to the purchase order system as the single orderplacement web page including product selection, product quantity, andpayment information.
 4. The method of claim 1 wherein the orderplacement web page comprises a single web page and the loading stepcomprises providing the interface to the purchase order system as thesingle order placement web page including customer service wrap upcodes.
 5. The method of claim 1 wherein the order placement web pagecomprises a single web page and the loading step comprises providing theinterface to the purchase order system as the single order placement webpage including an “up sale” opportunity of a product for a customer. 6.The method of claim 1 wherein the updating step comprises utilizingdynamic hypertext markup language to update only the shopping cartportion of the order placement web page whereby the entire web page isnot reloaded while the product option information is updated on thepurchase order web page
 7. The method of claim 1 wherein the dynamichypertext markup language comprises Asynchronous JavaScript andExtensible Markup Language (AJAX).
 8. The method of claim 1 furthercomprising steps of: queuing a first and second shopping cart action forthe shopping cart into a pending cart action queue based on the userselecting shopping cart actions; and updating the shopping cart portionof the order placement web page based on the queued shopping cartactions without loading and refreshing the entire order placement webpage.
 9. The method of claim 8 further comprising a step of submittingthe purchase order for the product.
 10. The method of claim 8 furthercomprising steps of: sending the first and second shopping cart actionsutilizing dynamic hypertext markup language over the network to thepurchase order system; and receiving updated shopping cart informationover the network from the purchase order system.
 11. The method of claim10 wherein the queuing step comprises acting by the purchase ordersystem upon the actions in the pending cart action queue prior tosubmitting a purchase order for the product.
 12. The method of claim 8wherein the queuing step comprises locking the shopping cart from otherentry of information while the purchase order system acts upon theaction.
 13. The method of claim 8 wherein the queuing step comprises notlocking the shopping cart from other entry of information while thepurchase order system acts upon the action.